AMCON stops NITEL’s liquidation

December 2, 2012 : Everest Amaefule

Managing Director, AMCON, Mr. Mustafa Chike-Obi | credits: File copy

The claim of the Asset Management Company of Nigeria on the Nigerian Telecommunications Limited is stalling the planned liquidation of the First National Telecommunications Operator, investigation has shown.

The National Council on Privatisation chaired by Vice-President Namadi Sambo had in February approved guided liquidation as the strategy for disposing of the beleaguered telecommunication company and its mobile subsidiary, the Nigerian Mobile Telecommunications Limited.

NCP had also directed that its technical and legal committees to work closely to determine the modalities for handling the Nitel/Mtel’s liquidation process.

However, nine months into the directive, neither NCP nor its secretariat, the Bureau of Public Enterprises, has made any meaningful progress in closing the tortuous chapter on the privatisation of NITEL which has lingered for more than 11 years.

A source close to NCP confirmed that AMCON had made claim on NITEL because of about N52bn indebtedness of the former telecommunications company monopoly to some banks.

The debts are part of banks’ liabilities which AMCON had taken over and therefore had laid claim to the assets of NITEL and MTel and thereby stalling the planned liquidation.

When our correspondent visited the headquarters of AMCON in Abuja, there was no competent worker to speak on the matter.

It was, however, learnt that as a result of AMCON’s claim on NITEL, NCP was planning to commission an audit of the assets and liabilities of the company in order to determine what can be sold and what cannot be sold.

It was learnt that the rush of some liquidators appointed by the BPE to dispose of several properties of NITEL was posing a major challenge to NCP.

One of such properties, the 37-storey building in central Lagos better known as NECOM House was sold to West African Aluminum Products Plc, a company owned by Chief Suarau Olayiwola Alani Bankole, father of a former Speaker of the House of Representatives, Mr. Dimeji Bankole.

Several other properties belonging to the company including the proposed headquarters of the company under construction in the central district of Abuja had also been sold in controversial circumstances.

As a result of these challenges, it was learnt, NCP was considering to do proper audit of the assets and liabilities of the company’s properties in order to determine the way forward.

At one of its meetings earlier in the year, the NCP had also directed one of its committees to probe the management of NITEL for failing to account for revenues which it had been generating from the company’s portion of the continental submarine cable popularly known as SAT-3.

The NCP had directed the management of Nitel and Mtel to submit detailed financial reports and other relevant information on the proposals for the resuscitation of both companies to the Technical Committee of the NCP.

The Technical Committee in line with NCP’s directives invited the management of Nitel and Mtel to present detailed financial reports and other relevant information on the proposals for the resuscitation of both companies at its meeting held on Thursday, January 26, 2012.

The technical committee considered the presentation and submitted its recommendations to the NCP.

The NCP eventually resolved that the proposal by the management of NITEL/M-TEL was not a viable financial alternative and thus opted for ‘guided liquidation.’

The council had observed from the Nitel/Mtel presentation that they were receiving some revenues from SAT-3 which were not fully accounted for and in respect of which there had been no audit for several years.

In spite of the revenues, the management of Nitel/Mtel had been obtaining their salaries from the Federal Government.

Consequently, the NCP directed the Sub-Committee of the Technical Committee on Information, Communication, National Facilities and Agricultural Resources to immediately carry out investigations and ensure that all revenues received were accounted for and they should find out from Nitel/Mtel what they were spent on.

Our correspondent recalls that the result of the probe into the internally generated funds of the company has not been made public.

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